What kind of data did milgram collect

In the most well-known variation of the experiment, a full 65 percent of people went all the way. They were also unaware that they had just been used to prove the claim that would soon make Milgram famous: that ordinary people, under the direction of an authority figure, would obey just about any order they were given, even to torture. But as with human memory, the study—even published, archived, enshrined in psychology textbooks—is malleable.

The problem is, no one can really agree on what it proves instead. His studies are fantastic little pieces of theater.

Capitalizing on the fame his publication earned him, Milgram went on to publish a book on his experiments in and a documentary, Obedience , with footage from the original experiments.

But for a man determined to leave a lasting legacy, Milgram also made it remarkably easy for people to pick it apart. The Yale University archives contain boxes upon boxes of papers, videos, and audio recordings, an entire career carefully documented for posterity. The participant teacher was told that the electrode was attached to the shock generator in the adjoining room. To further enhance the authenticity of the generator the participant teacher was given a sample shock of 45 volts, applied by pressing the third switch.

The shock generator was actually powered by a volt battery and not wired to the mains. The participant teacher was then seated in an adjacent room in front of the shock generator and asked to read a series of word pairs to the learner.

The participant teacher then tests the learner by giving him one of the words in a pair along with four other words. The learner has to indicate which of the four words had originally been paired with the first word. If the answer was correct the participant teacher had to move onto the next word on the list, if the answer was wrong the participant had to tell the learner the correct answer and then the level of punishment that they were going to give them.

They would then press the first switch on the shock generator 15 volts. For every subsequent incorrect answer the participant was required to move one switch up the scale of shocks 15 volts higher than the voltage of the last shock delivered. In all conditions the learner gives a predetermined set of responses to the word pair test, based on a schedule of approximately three wrong answers to one correct answer.

At this point the learner Mr Wallace pounded on the wall of the room and could be heard by the participant teacher. The participant teacher was instructed to treat the absence of a response as a wrong answer and to shock the learner according to the usual schedule, allowing 5 to 10 seconds before considering no response as a wrong answer. The pounding on the wall was repeated after the volt shock but subsequently the learner was not heard from, and his answers did not reappear on the panel.

The prods were always made in sequence. Only if Prod 1 was unsuccessful could Prod 2 be used, etc. If the participant continued to disobey after Prod 4, the experiment was terminated. The experiment would end either when the volt shock had been administered, or when the participant walked out. A participant who breaks off at any point prior to the highest shock level volts is called a defiant participant, while one who obeys up to the volts is called an obedient participant. The sessions were also filmed and notes were taken by observers looking through an observation mirror.

The latency and duration of shocks were timed. After the experiment, the participants were thoroughly debriefed using open-ended questions and to test that the participants were not harmed a number of psychometric measures projective tests and attitude scales were used.

The participant was also reunited with the victim to show them that the victim was not harmed and it was explained to them that there behaviour was normal. These measures were taken to ensure that the participants left that laboratory in a state of well being. All 40 of the participants obeyed up to volts at which point 5 refused to continue.

Four more gave one further shock before refusing; two broke off at the volts level and one each at , and volts. Therefore, a total of 14 participants defied the experimenter, and 26 obeyed.

After the maximum shock had been administered, the participant was asked to continue at this level until the experimenter eventually called a halt to the proceedings, at which point many of the obedient participants heaved sighs of relief or shook their heads in apparent regret.

During the study many participants showed signs of nervousness and tension. Participants sweated, trembled, stuttered, bit their lips, groaned, dug fingernails into their flesh, and these were typical not exceptional responses.

Quite a common sign of tension was nervous laughing fits 14 out of 40 participants , which seemed entirely out of place, even bizarre. Full-blown uncontrollable seizures were observed for three participants. On one occasion, a participant had such a violently convulsive seizure that the experiment had to be halted; the year-old encyclopaedia salesman was extremely embarrassed. Participants took pains to point out that they were not sadistic types, and that the laughter did not mean they enjoyed shocking the learner.

Milgram put forward nine possible features of the experiment which may explain why such high levels of obedience occurred even when such extreme tension was created by the procedure:. Thus the learner could not feel aggrieved that he had been unfairly assigned his role. The situation was novel and there were no norms operating and nobody with whom to discuss ambiguities and doubts. This short-term pain was balanced with the possibility of long-term scientific gain.

They had thus indicated their willingness to take part. To test some of these explanations Milgram carried out many more variations of his experiment. For example in one variation to his experiment Milgram altered the location to a run-down office building in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut. The experimenter told the participant to continue giving shocks in the absence of a reply from the learner.

If at any point during the experiment the participant refused to go on, then the experimenter had four phrases or prods that he would use to coerce the participant to continue with the experiment. After the experimenter had used all four prods if the participant refused to continue the experiment was stopped and the participant was debriefed. When the participant was debriefed they were told about the true nature of the experiment and were introduced to Mr.

Wallace so they could see that he was not hurt in anyway. This is very important from an ethical point of view, think about how you would feel if you thought that you had hurt or killed someone. This prediction is not confirmed by the results of the study. In fact Milgram was almost completely wrong in his prediction. At this point only 5 participants refused to continue anymore with the experiment.

Participants sweated, trembled, stuttered, bit their lips, groaned, dug fingernails into their flesh, and these were typical not exceptional responses. Quite a common sign of tension was nervous laughing fits 14 out of 40 participants , which seemed entirely out of place, even bizarre. On one occasion, a participant had such a violently convulsive seizure that the experiment had to be halted. These include: location — the experiment took place in the interaction laboratory in Yale University.

This prestigious institution may have in part caused some of the obedience. In fact Milgram replicated his study in a number of different locations to test this hypothesis and found that location did indeed play a part in levels of obedience. The formality of the situation was believed to have contributed to the obedience witnessed, if the situation was less formal, we could expect to see far less obedience than was witnessed.

Further potential reasons for the level of obedience witnessed include:. This means that the participant did not have much time to think about their actions and this may have contributed to their obedience. Situational explanation — the situation they were in influenced them to behave in the way that they did. Factors influencing this were that they had volunteered for an experiment for which they had been paid, the formality of the location and the behaviour of the experimenter.

This is the explanation that was favoured by Milgram because he was a social psychologist. The study is very low in ethical principles. Although the participants were given the right to withdraw, they certainly were not made fully aware of it. The participants were also paid for their time and this is highly unethical, because payment can leave participants feeling obligated to continue with the experiment despite any objections they may have.

The participants were also not protected from harm. This is furthered as the participant was put in a novel situation, that is it was not a situation that they would find themselves in, in normal life. Furthermore, we can argue that the experiment has not informed us about obedience in everyday life and that it has only informed us about the obedience in that one situation. The sample was also androcentric — it contained only men.

Therefore we can argue that the results and conclusions of the study are not generalisable to wider population. Secondly, qualitative data is rich in detail, which can help bring out more information about the participants thoughts.

Moreover, the study is useful because it tells us that we have a tendency to follow people with authority.